£6.8 million in gift vouchers sent to Farepak agents

Gift vouchers worth £6.8 million have been sent to Farepak agents, it emerged today.

They will be distributed to everyone who lost out when the Christmas savings club collapsed.

The last vouchers were sent out by Royal Mail special delivery two days ago, according to Park Group plc, which organised the distribution.

Some 25,000 Farepak agents will allocate the vouchers to up to 150,000 customers who lost an average £400 each when the firm collapsed.

In addition, some 19,000 grocery hampers are being sent out to victims who placed orders for them before Farepak went into administration in October.

The last hampers are due to arrive with the agents by the middle of next week, the Department of Trade and Industry said.

An emergency compensation fund raised enough money to pay for the shopping vouchers and postage costs.

Financial services company Park Group plc provided staff who got the vouchers ready for posting from its offices in Birkenhead, Merseyside.

Gary Woods, managing director of the firm's Christmas savings club arm Park Retail, said: "People will get these vouchers and distribute them to the customers who will then go out and spend them. Hopefully it will put a smile back on a few people's faces."

The gift vouchers can be used at around 75 per cent of the UK's major retailers, Park Group said.

A DTI spokesman said no centralised records had been kept of how much each Farepak customer had paid in the savings club.

"The vouchers are being sent out to the agents directly - we don't have a distribution list of every individual," he said.

"It will be at the agents' discretion to give them out to customers based on how much they gave the agents."

Administrators who took on the firm after its collapse expect to pay Farepak victims a further 4p to 5p for every pound they saved sometime next year.